Surveying History

One of the inquiries the museum handles most often is, “What is this tool?”
Sometimes we don’t even receive a photo, just a very detailed description.

The device shown here was donated to the museum. According to the note from the
auctioneer, it was a frontier farmer’s tool used in Kentucky. Its purpose was
to lay a straight line. Beyond that, the tool’s name and origin remain a
mystery. The sight is bamboo, so we’re checking with places like the American
Bamboo Society.

The piece is part of an exhibit on less-than-scientific measuring
methodologies. Some of our other favorites from this exhibit are the wayweiser,
the tobacco jack, the cigarette on horseback and the horizontal sighting using
the backside of a horse.

If you come across an unusual measurement device, the museum can help identify
the piece and give you some background information. However, please be sure to
include a photo. And don’t ask for an appraisal. In our view, these tools are
priceless.

Women
in Surveying

Most of the museum’s tours start with this photo of a 1918 graduating class of
surveyors from Mount Morris College in Illinois. The group includes two women;
however, there is no record of who these women were, and there wasn’t a registered
female land surveyor in Illinois until the 1970s. Were these two women
surveyors or engineers, or were they the wives or girlfriends of the male
students?

History has documented women receiving doctoral degrees in mathematics as early
as 1886, and the acclaimed Alice Fletcher, the first American woman surveyor,
allotted Indian lands in the mid-1800s. (See the 2002 POB
article “The Measuring Woman” at www.pobonline.com for more details.) Although records show other women
receiving pay for being surveyors in the 19th and early 20th centuries, they
were usually on crews with their husbands. Of course, some women in the early
1900s likely became surveyors when the men went to war.

The women in this photo are a mystery. If anyone has information about who they
might be and whether they were surveyors, please contact the museum.

June
Trivia: What was the first surveyor’s tool?

Answer: No one knows for sure, but
many people believe odd engravings seen in Egypt, Greece and Rome provide a
good indication. The engravings show a groma, like the one pictured here built
by Jennifer Laurenzana, a surveyor-in-training who is currently a survey
technician at Coombe-Bloxdorfe PC in Springfield, Ill.

A search on “Roman Groma” on YouTube pulls up some interesting videos showing
the groma in use. The one titled “Roman Military Surveying” by ukcaelo is
particularly fascinating because of the subject's passion. Others show how the
agrimensores and gromatici used the groma to lay out straight lines and
90-degree angles on properties, farms, roads and walls.

The Romans originally sighted a line using paces and a pole man who would place
poles on the ground, so it could be argued that these were the first true
surveyor’s tools. We don’t have any Roman poles at the museum, but we do have
the groma shown here, thanks to Laurenzana’s donation.

How many of the more than 350 unique NOAA Science on a Sphere datasets are
directly related to surveying?

Check back in August for the answer and more glimpses of surveying history from
the museum. Or visit the museum for yourself!

Abraham
Lincoln’s National Museum of Surveying is the only museum and tourist attraction of
its kind in the country. Located in Springfield, Ill., the hometown of Abraham
Lincoln, the museum preserves the legacy of surveying while ensuring its future
through vivid images, superb storytelling and dynamic multimedia. Through the
Reaching Our Orbit Capital Campaign launched in March 2012, the museum is
raising funds to pay down its mortgage and expand its educational programs. An
undisclosed source has pledged to match every donation received, up to
$200,000, by the end of 2012. For more information and to find out how you can
support the museum’s efforts, visit
www.surveyingmuseum.org.

Events

The Salina Seminar Series combines top notch speakers and a wide variety of topics with the opportunity to network with leading vendors and Land Surveyors from all over the Midwest, creating one of the premiere educational venues in the Midwest.

Annually, TSPS produces a two-day, multi-track, affordable and accessible educational event designed to provide continuing adult education and credit hours approved by the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveyors to the community of professional surveyors as well as other professionals.

Products

We began by creating a survey as a cooperative effort between several high level geospatial leaders, POB staff, and Clear Seas Research market research experts. The survey was sent out to more than 25,000 geospatial professionals who subscribe to POB and/or are members of MAPPS.